The present invention relates to an image search method and apparatus for finding a desired image from plural images.
Various search means have been proposed for searching a database having a large number of image data for a desired image. These search means are briefly classified into:
search methods to link an image with non-image information such as a keyword or date of image sensing, and perform a search based on the information; and
search methods to perform a search based on a feature amount (luminance and color difference information, an image frequency, a histogram and the like) of the image itself.
Among the latter search methods, a method to present an image and search a database with a feature amount of the image as a search key, is called a similar image search. This method has an advantage that a user without particular image processing knowledge is provided with an intuitive interface.
Further, in the similar image search, it has been proposed to perform an image search by using an image obtained by drawing with a pointing device or the like as a similar image search source.
The result of image search is notified to an operator by a graphic view of reduced images or thumb-nail images. The operator is informed of the contents of images found by the search to a certain degree from the notification, and easily obtains desired image data (file).
However, in any of the image search based non-image information and the image search based on image information, a desired image may not be obtained by one search operation. In this case, the search condition is changed and the image search is performed again, and, the above view display is updated in accordance with the search result.
Upon view display of images, reduced images are generated from found image data and displayed, or low-resolution data previously held by the found image data are extracted and displayed. For the purpose of view display, considerable processing time is required. Especially, in a case where the image search is repeated to obtain a desired image, if it takes much time for the view display in each notification of search result, an efficient search operation is disturbed even though image search processing itself is made at a high speed.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above problems, and has as its object to increase the speed of view display as a search result notification and enable an efficient image search operation.
According to one aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object is attained by providing an image search apparatus comprising: search means for performing an image data search based on an input search condition; display means for displaying a view of plural images indicating plural image data obtained from the search by the search means; update means for updating the view displayed by the display means based on image data obtained from a new search by the search means; determination means for determining whether or not each of the plural images displayed by the display means is the same as an image after an update by the update means; and control means for, if the determination means determines that the displayed image is the same as the image after the update by the update means, skipping the update by the update means.
Further, according to another aspect of the present invention, the foregoing object is attained by providing an image search method comprising: a search step of performing an image data search based on an input search condition; a display step of displaying a view of plural images indicating plural image data obtained from the search at the search step; an update step of updating the view displayed at the display step based on image data obtained from a new search at the search step; a determination step of determining whether or not each of the plural images displayed at the display step is the same as an image after an update at the update step; and a control step of, if it is determined at the determination step that the displayed image is the same as the image after the update at the update step, skipping the update at the update step.